Wednesday, November 29 | 3:20 p.m.-3:30 p.m. | W7-SSCH08-3 | Room E350
The image quality of chest CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) exams performed with photon-counting CT (PCCT) is better than conventional CT and can be performed at a 52% lower radiation dose, according to study results to be presented on Wednesday.
A group led by Martine Remy-Jardin, MD, PhD, of University Centre of Lille, France, conducted a study that included 142 patients with no known lung disease referred for chest CTPA; of these, 71 underwent CTPA with PCCT and 71 underwent CTPA with a conventional CT scanner. Morphologic imaging consisted of 1-mm thick lung and mediastinal images at 70 kV for the PCCT group and averaged images from both tubes for the conventional CT group.
The group found that CTPA using PCCT performed better on morphologic imaging than conventional CTPA in the following ways:
- A significantly lower dose length product (172.6 mGy*cm vs. 339.4 mGy*cm, p < 0.0001), which translated to a 52% dose reduction.
- Shorter acquisition time (0.93 seconds vs. 3.98 seconds; p < 0.0001).
- No significant difference in the attenuation values in the central pulmonary arteries and aorta.
- Lower signal-to-noise ratio (43.1 vs. 64.6; p < 0.0001) and contrast-to-noise ratio (37.3 vs. 55.7; p < 0.0001) [lower values indicate better performance].
"Spectral imaging with [photon-counting detector]-CT provides comparable image quality between 70 kV images and averaged images of DSCT with improved quality of perfusion imaging at lower radiation dose," Remy-Jardin and colleagues concluded.
Take a closer look at their findings in this Wednesday presentation.
